Game to Facilitate 
A Dialogue in Art Education

Hello, I am ellis in wonderland and am a Game Alchemist; the activity of play continues to fill me with wonderment. It makes me curious to learn more and more. I am a perpetual learner, addicted to playing in the most positive sense, and I have a healthy habit of looking at life through a playful lens. Do you like to play games? Would you like to join me in this? 

What happens between a player and a game, or between players during the game, is much richer than the game rules or the winning and losing aspect. So therefore, I created this instructable to create your own game to be used as a dialogue starter, to create and hold a safe space to learn from and with each other about a specific topic in a different way than just talking about the topic. And to explain this, I made an example game: In Education in art, misinterpretations can occur since the creative process can be conceptual, contextual and personal. Learning something new is also sensitive, so it is used as an example to create your game for your own (educational) context to be played to share the search for a common language, ground and better understanding. This example game will be called the My MEiA game (Master Education in Art)

You can use all different material available to you, my advice it to start with pen and paper first.

Game rules set the conditions and boundaries for a game to take place, and the most obvious is the playground is a visualisation of the context or situation you wish to provide to your players to explore and get familiar with. This can be created very realistically or abstractly (think of chess). Your players can navigate inside your provided space created with boundaries to understand how to situate themselves relative to hypothetical conditions and experience their agency to influence their sphere of influence.

Time is sparse, and the most needed dialogue is often overlooked to discuss our ground rules. To take these unspoken ways of doing or rules and values for granted since these are often assumed yet not outspoken. Most players want to jump to the core for what is at stake, “the endgame”; even the “what is in it for me, or am I wasting my time?” is often not discussed. There are many more things at stake to be revealed first, the conditions, commitment or consent to join a topic adventure together. Committing to take time is game rule number one.

Example • My MEiA game: time as the first set boundary to make sure everyone knows what the Endgame is and how to strategise ahead; after a jointly decided amount of time of play, we will have shared and listened to different players' perspectives to get a better perspective on our joint educational context, background, future expectations and fears and hopes together. To set some ground rules on communicating and understanding how to treat and be treated in our joint adventure.

First, decide what material you wish to use or need to map your context or topic; use something easy to find or at hand that you are comfortable with, like paper and pencils. Start with a draft; worrying about the end result is unnecessary. There is always time and space to iterate (= make changes). Tip: keep it simple! (also called the KISS rule = Keep It Super Simple).

Example • for my MEiA game, Lego is chosen as easy available and recyclable material, it represents constructing/deconstructing and reconstructing with an open end. The MEiA education trajectory is imagined as an island adventure. Arriving and meeting other travellers and inhabitants with each different backgrounds, languages, expectations and previous island adventures. Knowing there is an ocean of knowledge to navigate and find more islands in future. As learners, we are steering our boat, navigating the waves of feeling insecure in the not-knowing and getting more and more confident the more islands we travel from and to.

Think of your beginning and end, and use realistic content from the educational materials to create the playground/context. Decide the steps for players, just a few big or many little steps. You can create one line or alternative paths; it is important for a player to feel some sense of freedom and autonomy inside her created context and trajectory. When you allow your player to make choices, they will feel less forced and freer in their own game (to hand over ownership and allow your player to play their game - not your game- they will engage). 

Example • the trajectory in this island-map is the two-year MEiA curriculum holding six trimesters indicating progress with growing (in height) yellow towers, a start and finish representing graduation from the institute to go out for the next adventure (the boat trip in white from finish to start is to express how we learn circular based on previous learnings, and we never start from scratch yet proceed, in a three-dimensional representation it would be more like a spiral). The colours indicate the five different competencies that shape the baseline of the Meia curriculum: Artistic Ability, Ability to act, Ability to reflect critically, Pedagogic and didactic ability and Research ability.

What do you wish your players to get curious about and explore in your game? You can add objects, obstacles, characters, scenarios and dimensions; everything can be imagined for the player to be explored. For inspiration, think about history, culture, and nature or go abstract, like out of space or microworlds.

Tip: try to keep your plan a bit flexible or modular, so when the game is being played as a test, you can eliminate or add things to make it more easy-accessible when required or more adventurous and challenging. Some types of players feel lost and need guidance and onboarding, yet other players prefer a challenge and to discover things themselves. This is also called scaffolding which applies to game design and teaching to make sure support is there when required to prevent players from getting anxious, which makes them disconnect and stop playing (and in learning, stop learning). Yet when your game is boring, players also might disconnect and stop playing (and learners stop learning). Your game adventure must provide your player with the right challenge at the right moment, yet it is crucial to acknowledge that each player experiences these moments at a different pace. If we can make the player feel safe, trust the game and are committed to being an agent in his trajectory/positioning, then he can relate to your game better. 

Example • my MEiA game represents the MEiA curriculum, I added many specific details in my initial map, and during testing, I learned that an overload of information is easily ignored. So I toned down my first map and took elements out to make these modular ingredients (e.g. the seminar descriptions) for more expert players to be explored in a later stage only. Hoping to elicit curiosity and get more familiar with the details about the MEiA program in a later play.

Do you know who you would want to play your game? “Anybody!” is not a good answer here since it is very hard to build a one size fits all game, and it might turn out nobody will play your game since nobody relates to it. You need context and research to make your game “fit”. Decide for whom and why you wish to create this game first. Secondly, you can consider who might play a role in your game. For instance, consider an opponent, hero, referee, enemy or helper. What type of players might be needed for your game’s purpose?

You are welcome to design a game you want to play, yet do you wish to play solo or connect with others? First, think about why you want to make your art education game, then decide who you wish to play that game. Define who that person is and what is in it for them to play your game. This will help you in your efforts to create your game, to make their needs come true. 

Example • my MEiA game is to be played: A) between tutors and staff to evaluate their pedagogy together, B) between students to get familiar with the institute's context and curriculum and to benchmark each other's positioning and recognise similarities being peers, and C) between tutors and students to understand (and appreciate) the gap between both roles in this activity of learning. 

Inside the game are often representations of a player; for example, the iconic coloured pawn is most used as the abstract player. In a game, one can play the role of a joker, dominator or cheater; this is one of the strong aspects in games, to be allowed to not be you, to explore boundaries and stretch these to get a better understanding of where and why boundaries do exist. Most important is to allow your player's choices and a sense of freedom to increase their experience of ownership, agency and autonomy. 

Example •the MEiA game asks players to create a character from five pieces of Lego. During play, more Lego pieces will be “won” as rewards to represent the journey and character transformation during that game. Lego is chosen as material since it is easy to get second hand and to avoid making waste. Secondly, it is inspiring as a material to build and dissect to trigger imagination and a playful mindset.

To add extra complexity to your game role-play in your game, make players switch their original roles. To switch to a different perspective to explore insights on a topic (and insert some humour and absurdity to take its role in the game while being played), for example, what would an alien do, your grandmother or your future grandchildren?

Example • In an early prototype, I intended to ‘force’ players in my Meia education game to choose the perspective of teacher or students to explore that gap, to polarise the matters at stake so my players would experience the controversy in the learning trajectory, but after testing it was proven to make the game unnecessarily complex and resulted in the opposite effect as was intended, based on that experiment this feature in this game got trashed, and other things had been explored after, to ensure the easy access and maintain the meaningful play. 

Or how to create 'the magic circle' as “a state in which the player is bound by a make-believe barrier created by the game” (described by Johan Huizinga in Homo Ludens in 1938). This magic circle is not easy to control since the player makes the game active by interacting with it. So how to invite your player to explore the game and, thirdly, immerse in it? (Source: 3 stages of play by Linda Valk)

Inviting your player to act in the game must provide some promise to ignite interaction. Make sure your players feel safe and ideally trust the promise, or get triggered by curiosity to overcome that threshold to feel free to participate. Playing a game should be voluntary; otherwise, your participant performs a task, and no magic circle is taking place. After the invitation phase, the exploratory phase is second, which allows the player to explore the rules, and the boundaries, stretch or bend these and understand the context and purpose better; the third phase is immersion, which only happens when a player feels safe and free, does not feel lost or confused by the rules (created maybe their own rules to enhance gameplay). 

Example • these Ground Rules to create a safe space for participants to engage in Reflecting Otherwise (Source: my classmate at Meia Maaike Papeveld)

• You always have the agency to decide what you want to share and what you don't.
• You are a body in space; you are always permitted to do what you need to be comfortable. Shared information stays between us.
• You are always welcome to refuse or suggest a different way.
• You are always welcome to use another medium for the exercises.

First, think about the games you liked and why you liked these. Then check out their game rules, re-read and try to analyse them and why they are there. It is also a good idea to re-use and combine game rules from different games you (and your players) are familiar with, the so-called mechanics in game design. These game mechanics create the interaction between your player and the game; interplay = is how two or more things affect each other. This following procedure is called a feedback loop and is crucial to make a game relevant and continuous, you grow a relationship with each interaction taking place, and this needs to have some meaning to the player; you both feed each other. Reciprocity is an overlooked element in games, and when designed well, players feed each other emotions (positive and negative) in the game that will engage and last. 

Example • For my MEiA game, I choose a dice as a game ingredient since there are 5 competencies plus one for various category = 6, plus it is easily recognised as play object how to use in play. A dice provides the element of unexpectedness to the game, it activates the player to take their turn to connect to the game and with each other. Secondly, this game has a deck of cards with questions to elicit a dialogue on sensitive topics related to the MEiA curriculum. Six coloured play cards, matching the five competencies and one for diverse topics that fit none or more than one competency. Players throw the dice, jump on the map forward and read a card from a stack as a challenge for another player(s) to answer and receive a reward(s). The questions need thorough curation and testing to protect the play experience. Players are invited to create their question cards during play, to allow more agency and an inquisitive mindset.

TIP • When designing a game, exaggeration and simplification are used to use polarity as a game mechanic. For example, life vs death, failure vs success, win vs lose, and black vs white. Games abstract topics and conflicts to make things explicit… yet during play, players learn a lot about the nuances in between those. It allows the experience that even fixed things are flexible. Fred Moten expressed in his conversation with Stefano: “Fred: And then you kind of realise that it’s not really important. You spend all this time trying to figure it out, but then you realise that there’s also this interaction and interplay that’s still going on in the text. It’s not a dead thing. What you listen to or what you’re reading is still moving and still living. It’s still forming.” (Source: The Undercommons by Stefano Harney en Fred Moten)

A good game adjusts to the player's capabilities and needs. To avoid boring your player to death, you design good levels and ensure that the game can fit your player's needs or allow them to level up at their own pace. Sometimes a player overestimates their competency; then it is good if the game allows alternatives for the player to not feel lost, yet see options to take time to stay engaged and committed; then, being able to level up later is a rewarding experience. Players can surprise themselves inside games, get in a flow and learn they are capable of more than expected… Just as in education, we often do not know what we are capable of, and need encouragement, challenge, and feel safe to take risks at our own pace and choice… 

Example • In the Meia game, the cards match different categories and phases in the curriculum*: 

• star cards are for the first two trimesters (beginner level)
• two-star cards for third and fourth trimesters (intermediate level) 
• three-star cards for fifth and sixth trimesters (mastery level). 

A set can be curated or created for a particular situation, related to the curriculum or the context or the players with a focus on a possible purpose ( for example, when preparing theoretical background, ask participants to create their own questions cards before coming to the class/game to enhance that experience and make them the owner of that lesson in advance = flipping the classroom). (source: the mastery path in Gamethinking by Amy Jo Kim)

Most people believe games are only about winning, but games are more sophisticated than that, and winning is just one of the spices that give taste. The simplest version is rewarding your player's points; when these points and scores are unevenly distributed due to specific behaviour - an economy is created, and players might get activated to (different) behaviour to ensure their gratification. Scarcity and abundance are experienced and in the hands of the player to experience agency and control (or frustration and challenge). Choose your ‘economy’ or currency in your game to reward or punish, and test this carefully with your players to see if they trust or distrust the system you invited them in. Tip • constraints and borders can be experienced as a limitation; feeling unfree is also great to feel; they make you think about why and how they are created or meant to be there, how to overcome them or use the frame to stay inside. To understand borders truly, we need to come across them, touch these, explore and break them. By the way, cheating is essential to better understand the game/context since cheating requires an exceptional zooming-out capability. So as game designers, we think about cheating as one of the ingredients to provide space and freedom, plus not to forget, it is the biggest compliment when players cheat on your game; it indicates engagement to their game circle.

Example • The Meia game rewards anyone who contributes to the dialogue with a piece of lego matching the competency (card) colour to extrapolate a sense of growth, for players to start as a minor character and build with insights, knowledge and skills to a more prominent character towards the end. I chose Lego as material since it invited creativity with a shallow threshold and was easy to get second-hand. The Lego colours fit my theme's five competencies. The colours of the rainbow are also deliberately chosen to point out the inclusivity aspect. How to celebrate differences in art education is the core message of this game.

The Endgame of your game is the last part of a strategic game. How do you wish for your players to feel afterwards? Does it live up to the promise you offered your player at the start of your game? Or imagine what you hope your players will say after they play the game. “I want to play again!” or “This was a special moment to cherish!” or “Next game, we will… change the game….”

The end of every game is the invitation for the next game to be played; this can be your game being replayed, or a different game can be chosen to play. These experiences are like a string of learning experiences, all influencing each other. Players re-play repeatedly, explore other games, conditions and players to play, learn more, get better at it, understand, learn, extrapolate insights to take control…

Games allow a safe place to learn with and from each other and to examine perspectives on topics and people that are not easily reached in everyday conversations. This helps us situate situations differently.

Example • The MEiA game ends when the time is up. Then the winner is the person most near to the end, or the winner is the person with the most Lego pieces… the players can decide this… in this game, I took a significant risk by not setting the rules clearly at the start for the “winning purpose” to be fixed, but to leave this up to the players to choose. In my MEiA game, the primary purpose is to provide ownership of the trajectory to the player, as I prefer to give license to my students as an educator…. Yet constantly aware that this does not mean there is no guidance and do not leave them in a maze without help; how they get out of the labyrinth is their decision-making method, and I have tools to assist them in this decision-making process. I want them to learn competencies and be able to use tools when I am not around as an educator or game host.

Most important in game design is to test your game. It would be best if you tried it often and early.

Write down your assumptions, and then test if these are true or maybe not. You can test parts of your game by asking people what you see, think, hear and feel while showing them your first draft design. Then decide what your design needs. How can you improve your game? How can you make a game to invite people to play and create their magic circle? A game is never really finished or perfect; there is always something that can make it better, different, and longer; that magic circle truly is magical and not in your hands, yet it is contextual and being played by other players. And as a game designer, you tend to fall in love with your game concept. You might get blindsided by it, and that is fine, continue working with your game and improving it while opening the dialogue with your players.

Example: my MEiA game is tested in parts by different people, inside and outside MEiA, and primarily by myself. It has been changed often but needs more play to see its potential. Especially the creation of new cards excites me as a vital game ingredient, yet this assumption still needs to be proven since this game was only designed in the last three months of this graduation.

As explained earlier, each game is different when it is played again, by who, when and where it is played; see how many different versions of the game Chess exist, in large size for on the beach, with magnets for travelling conditions, and secondly how many different games have been played, with other moves. A game needs to be open for adaptation and for players to make it their own, so a game is never really finished; it is a circular movement, like the magic circle is, and the end of one game is the invitation for the next game to be played, maybe differently situated. And new questions, topics and answers to get addressed.

Example • the MEiA game shows instead of only a linear journey, the circularity of learning, the end of the trip on the island is a way to exit your educational context with a grade or diploma, but what is next is your next learn-adventure needs to do, re-do and train to get a deeper understanding of our capabilities and positioning in the world.

The end of this lesson and instructable is also the beginning, create your manual, how would you explain your game to be played, and again the advice: KISS (keep it super simple) to lower the threshold of your game to be hospitable and inviting to your players.

Example • for my MEiA game’s manual, see the image.